[pnpgm] Game Update #12 - File #140 - Ship Boredom ends-OOCUnit conversion

[J Hooten]

OOC:
PnP Dragons are fairly easy to kill
They default to a major magical attack, but just that one even though 
they could have much more.
They are tough due to high NAV and decent HP but not beyond many 
character design capabilities.

A starting human can be stronger than a dragon without any supernatural aids
A starting human can match the armor
A good weapon will do more damage that a dragons claws
That leaves Breath weapons and flight as the big issues
So a hack and chop fighter can loose due to mobility!
Add Archery to solve that.
So Bows take away part of the flight advantage, if it flys shoot it as 
it cant fight back so well that way.

Breath is major problem for a fighter and is why a lone fighter is a 
poor match
He would need protection from fire or magic in general or be able to 
take a lot of damage
Or use tricks to misdirect things
Or depend on ambushing etc
Not all that great of a chance
But if the fighter got some means to move very fast, he can out run the 
breaths and negate that.
There are many solutions that can work

So for Raban, if the dragon has some magical attack, or poison etc it 
tips the odds quite a lot.
Of course If Raban had magic equipment that can offset it back etc

Mages are the best antidragon design as spells can take care of defense 
as well as attacks
A proper mage will have a good MDV which can be boosted even higher 
without a lot of effort
As such it could negate the breath advantage
Attack spells negate the flight, though a Dragon has a good MDV as well
Staffs negate some of that MDV as do Luck and Purification and other 
similar boosts
So with a little effort the mage can negate the Dragons major issues 
with fighters
Then it only takes a few spells that work to take it out
Which means the Dragon needs to pounce on the mage for melee to have 
much of a chance or fly away

Now a 'Smart' Dragon changes all that too
Some dragons decided to learn spells and as such are much harder to 
predict what they can do
It could have counters to the Mages spells and tip the balance back to 
Dragon.

PnP Dragons are 'easy' only because normal rules for them run them as 
dumb dragons not much more than animals
But that is true of most games monsters, rarely are they allowed to play 
smart.
PnP Mountain Giants could scare everyone with their weapons and armor, 
if they made things for other giants it would be hard to stop them.
Think about giants in AV10+ plate armor or similar, with WSB+6 or more 
weapons

So Romidar is a special case, he is likely one of the most powerful 
antidragon combinations out there.
He is a Faerry Mage that Fights with weapons and has El9 innate Elfshot
So you get an invisible flying archer that drops a 100hp monster if the 
arrow scratches it
If it has more than 100HP it takes an additional +18HP damage above the 
basic damage from the ElfShot instead
And will it have less than 100HP on the next hit and thus drop?
And Elfshot gives -El to hit making the chance of serious damage higher
Note: This was the result of rolling random faerry innate and then 
making the character match it, I normally considered elfshot useless but 
it can be nasty.
Note: No supernatural stats or abilities on this character, just the 
basic faerry with good mage stats.
Faerries are excellent mages but tend to squish easily.
It is fairly easy to make a faerry MDV high enough that most spells 
bounce off.
Normally I play a faerry mage as a spell sniper not archer, but 
invisibility applies quite well in either case.
Yes, many consider faerries broken as a race for this reason!
But a single normal weapon hit can kill them in most cases, far easier 
than any other race.
As such a smart opponent can guarantee winning against them

PnP is a system that has counters for most anything if you are smart 
enough to work it out.
Also Starting characters are not the weaklings of most games
You have the choice to be more of a generalist with lots of growth or a 
specialist with less
But you advance by learning what you wish too
You do not become much tougher just more skilled, so a lucky beginner 
can take out a high level opponent
But mages can grow the fastest which is a balance problem

So give me the specs on a monster and I can likely show you a starting 
character build that can handle it
or what it would take which may be far less than people expect.







Chris & Karen Wells wrote:
> "Raban who is a barely above starting level character, has a fair 
> chance to take down a dragon by himself.
> Unlike the equivalent level character in the other game, Romidar, who 
> thinks they are easy."
>  
> Hmmm...something about that seems just wrong.  Any roleplaying game 
> where a starting level character can take down a dragon single-handed 
> is broken IMO.  :-)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------