New Monster Ability: Swat

[paladin2019]

I'm not sure this is really needed. What happens if only the stated scale modifier is used on rolls? For example, dragons are always +4 to be hit, even when another dragon is trying to attack them. The dragon also never takes a penalty to attack a human sized target and is only at -4 to swipe at the proverbial housecat. It certainly keeps things simple, and that has to make it more FFF.

[PEGShane]

We looked at just using the Scale Modifier, but didn't think it made sense or was intuitive to have creatures of the same Scale get a bonus (or penalty) against each other. I loved the simplicity of it, but a dragon getting +4 to hit a dragon seems odd; as does a Tiny fairy getting -6 to hit a Tiny fairy. Don't you think?

[paladin2019]

Hey, Kaiju gonna Kaiju, right?

And fairies never fight each other, anyway, so it's a non-issue.

Seriously, I think the bigger problem is that the modifiers are too much for the granularity capable in the SW engine, especially when compounded by the extremes. Then you need rules like Swat. The specific numbers work better with a certain other game using a larger default die. So I'm really working through how to avoid the need for a rule like Swat in the first place.

[mattprice516]

A certain other game also combines "hitting" and "penetrating armor" into a single roll, whereas in SW it is two rolls. The former allows a bit more abstraction - aka a dragon can be as hard to "hit" as a fairy, but for different reasons (armor vs dodginess). Since SW doesn't combine those, common sense dictates that the Scale modifiers should work more or less as they do, since common sense dictates that a tiny fairy is much, much harder to shoot (or whack) than a giant dragon.

[DoctorBoson]

I'm not sure I'm seeing what either the issue or the suggestion is here. I don't believe there's any maneuver in SW called "Swat" so I'm guessing this is a rule proposal, but I'm not sure. Are you saying that you think you need a monstrous ability or maneuver called "Swat" to ignore a bunch of Scale penalties?

If so, I don't think that's necessary. Dragons are at –4 to hit humans but with d12+d8+8 damage even a heavily armored human is going to be taking at least a wound or two every hit. Preserving the interaction between characters of similar scale I think is more important.

[ValhallaGH]

One of the 4.1 changes is a new monster ability: Swat. Attacks that Swat ignore the attacker's scale modifier to attack. Link

[DoctorBoson]

Ah! I was very wrong then!

[PEGShane]

DocBoson: See here: https://www.pegforum.com/forum/feedb...-v4-changelist

[DoctorBoson]

Whoops! Shows me for browsing in stats class.

[mattprice516]

I think it's fine as-is. The fact that attack modifiers scale fairly reasonably with differences and disparities in Size is a good thing, and removing that for no real reason wouldn't improve the game IMO.

[Soulliard]

I like this ability. It makes dragons really scary, which they should be.

[Almagest]

This. Imagine one character with Deflection and/or Invisibility. A Dragon would never hit him and die from 1000 paper cuts =)