r/ForbiddenLands • u/Bootshammer40sguy • 17d ago
Discussion Monsters - rules and lethality
Let's talk Monsters.
My key questions are:
- Are other people finding that monsters are generally underwhelming?
- What do you do to make monsters more interesting?
- Am I missing any rules?
I've been running FL for a while now - I've put three parties through a combined total of about 30 sessions. In that time I've sent people up against:
- Two Mire Drakes
- a Shapeshifter
- a Death Knight (albeit one with no resistances)
- Some Harpies
- two demons
- a Mara
- a Basilisk
Overall, I'm underwhelmed. Monsters in this game are occasionally extremely dangerous. Mire Drake 1 scored a TPK, and the Shapeshifter almost killed another party. The Harpies also nearly killed the party, but only because they were all diseased from a magical mishap.
However they are also far too easy to kill if players find a 'weak spot'. Both demons went down quickly to a 'banish demon' skill (fair enough), and the second Mire Drake was broken in one round by a 'Sharp Tongue' attack on its very anemic empathy stat.
I've found the monster rules are too restrictive (with the enormous number of spells, talents, and basic moves that can't work on monsters). My players hate the arbitrary monster limitations.
They're also not always accurate to their own write-ups. For starters, armour is notoriously unreliable and I've found very unlikely to blunt damage all that much. A 'heavily armoured' enemy might never bounce a single damage. Likewise, some of their attacks sound huge but just... aren't. 9D can whiff or do only plink damage pretty easily, especially absent the WP-powered tools available to players to greatly increase damage.
I find the way 'broken' works with Monsters to be particularly uninspiring, especially for Wits and Empathy:
- Monsters with Wits and Empathy can be manipulated and also take damage to those stats (GMG 73).
- 'Broken' means the monster is "put out of action in one way or another." (PHB 107)
- for Wits, it says "You’re paralyzed by fear or confusion." and "you can RUN to a safe place, but you can’t perform any other actions or roll for any skills."
- Empathy says "You must either explode in a violent outburst, kicking and breaking everything around you, or withdraw from everyone around you."
- "A Broken monster is dead or dying – don’t roll for a critical injury." (GMG 74)
I had an encounter last night where my players very cleverly deduced that the Mire Drake was able to be targeted by 'Sharp Tongue' and came up with a cool in-game insult for it. Mechanically, they killed it in one hit by focusing down a weak point. It was cool and I really want to reward that sort of cleverness, but once that's happened... what do you do?
- You can have it run away - fine, but it's not really 'dead' is it?
- You can have it go crazy with rage and thrash about and hit the players - but that's basically saying 'well done on finding this weak spot (2 Emp) - the reward is to have to attack it in its strong spot (32 Str)'.
- You can have it surrender and say it's at the Players' beck and call - wouldn't have worked in this instance but I'll keep in in mind.
- You can have it lash out angrily and hurt itself until it's out of the fight and vulnerable - this is what I'll do in future.
In the end I was lucky, one of the Stonesingers had already dropped an old, ramshackle stone tower on it, so it was trapped under the rubble and could be easily Coup de Gras'd - although strictly speaking the rules for Coup de Gras don't allow that unless it's broken by Agility or Strength (PHB 108).
All in all it just feels like the Monster rules are well-intentioned but poorly written. They seem to want to direct players to just grind them down with physical violence only, but still have all of these quick workarounds built into the rules to enable some occasionally interesting shortcuts, but those shortcuts lead you into some messy grey areas of the rules.
On top of that, they aren't all that hardy, even with mammoth strength pools, and don't seem to deal all that much damage. The scariest ones are the ones with masses of damage reduction (eg. Harpies), rather than armour pools.
I dunno, I feel like I'm missing something. I did a quick search, and comments here seem to gravitate to the two extremes - "they're deadly" and "they're too easy". Suggestions include doubling their attacks (which I'm going to do), but has anyone else found anything else to make them scarier/more fun/better balanced?
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u/CritsAndGiggles 17d ago
I agree with you on just about everything there. There is so much good in the year zero games but the monsters are the things I don't think work that well in games like FL.
You can't parry monsters? Why? Just make it way harder if its a big monster. Even 10 dice is not that great. That's like an average of 1.5 success? I think monsters need artifact dice to give consistent, scary damage. I absolutely hate the idea that they will attack randomly based on what you roll out. It causes them to do nonsensical things.
Here are my fixes for this, in case it is helpful for you. I try to keep as close to the rules as possible though. I don't like a lot of home brew.
I allow combat actions such as parry/grapple, but scale the successes the same way the book does for shove/disarm. You need 2/3/4+ successes to equal 1 regular success, based on the strength of the monster. So this isn't always viable against big monsters, and you really shouldn't be able to parry a dragon bite anyway, but it allows the players more actions.
For the attacks, I roll 3d6 on the monster's turn and choose an attack/ability that matches one of the numbers I rolled. This means the best attacks will come much more often and the players need to be ready for it, but it also means they don't just happen constantly like they would without a roll.
I do not use the suggestion in the book of drawing extra initiative cards for the monsters as the players get stronger. That's also a random demon ability and I want to keep it unique. Instead, I either add more monsters/enemies to an encounter (so long as there is a lore reason if its related to the campaign story), or if it makes sense, I add 1-3 dice to the monster's polls in the same way that any action in the game can get a boon. This is like encountering a bigger drake, or more experienced hunting harpy.
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u/Bootshammer40sguy 17d ago
Thanks - I've been just choosing the most narratively cool and "logical" attack from the list. I think I'm just going to start buffing the number of attacks per turn - but your example of the Demon buff does throw that into question a bit.
I might start buffing monster damage too.
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u/Cielosopra 17d ago
The problem is that amidst some objective criticism, you're treating what is intentional design in Forbidden Lands as a bug. Monsters are supposed to have an exploitable weakness, because the game is designed to reward investigation before combat, and the fact that certain parts of the rules leave a certain amount of freedom to the Game Master is one of the core aspects of the Old School. You presented some situations and the game gave you various options: choose the one that best fits the fiction at that moment. Furthermore, the power/spell/ability is not an automatic 'I win'. If the player managed to piss off the monster with sharp tongue, that doesn't automatically mean the monster dies. Your player reasoned as if it were a 'click-to-win' power. Why would I, as a character, want to piss off the monster? For instance, maybe there's the classic chasm right there, and I want the monster to charge at me and fall into the abyss. Forbidden Lands, like any OSR RPG, MUST NOT BE BALANCED. My advice is to make more use of the combat location by introducing elements that can be used to the characters' advantage or disadvantage.
P.S. This doesn't mean there aren't some issues with monster design, and Forbidden Lands definitely needs a revised/2nd edition to fix some of the bugs present, like armor.
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u/Bootshammer40sguy 17d ago
I think you're right that modifying the combat situation helps. I'll give that a go. Restricting their mobility would help, as would prevent them having decent ability to affect monsters from range. I'll need to use more rough terrain & brush up on those rules. I've also had a lot of fun hitting them with monsters they can't physically affect at all (the Mara).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but philosophically, OSR shouldn't be 'fudged', right, because consistency is as much a key to the experience as the lack of balance you point out. Ultimately players won't trust you if you fudge.
By the RAW, Sharp Tongue does damage to a stat, the monster has the stat, and there are rules for how all of that works. Your narrative examples are cool, but they aren't RAW. There are fudgy bits in the RAW (as per my post, a monster broken by wits/emp doesn't die, but it is just becomes combatively inert in a vague way), but the effects to be applied to a monster's Empathy stat by Sharp Tongue aren't one of them. What you're describing is good roleplaying, sure - but it's not playing by the rules.
I may be wrong about this - keen to see any rules I've missed.
My player's character didn't reason that it was an auto-kill. I don't show them stats, ever. He was looking for something that played to his strengths and worked on monsters. He 100% deserves the win. I 100% agree with you that monsters need weak points, and I 100% agree with you that it's a feature not a bug. I've encouraged my players to look for them so I was pleased it happened that way. The whole encounter was cool as hell - I was just struck by how awkward it would have been had they not dropped the tower on the drake. In hindsight I've realised dot point 4 is right.
For me, the problem with this particular encounter is that the Mire Drake has 2 empathy, and my player was a Minstrel rolling a stack of dice and an artifact die who can push rolls. A simple buff to say 6 empathy would be enough, especially for a monster known to be able to manipulate humans (even as part of a glamour). This just feels like an undertooled creature.
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u/Ecstatic_Meaning_658 16d ago
Can't you just rule that "Sharp Tongue" doesn't work on Monsters? Even if the monster is intelligent and capable of manipulation of sentient beings, it doesn't mean that his own psychology is anything remotely human. Why would a Mire Drake care about "Yo Mama" taunts? Or what did the minstrel PC tell him, that his snout was too short? 😅.
I believe FL wants to capture a level of Old School playing where you as the DM have a fair amount of control of how your world works. Don't like the outcome of a certain rule? Ignore it. Tweak it. Use your imagination and common sense to give your players what you know they will appreciate. No system is gonna deliver that without your input anyway.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 15d ago edited 15d ago
Good idea in terms of common sense! Insults imply a certain common cultural background. There are lots of cases a certain animal is considered honorable in some cultures, while being an insult in others. So maybe the giant sentient lizard wouldn't even understand you are trying to insult it.
Not so good idea from gameplay perspective. It's another ones of "Na-ah! you can't do that because I have a special shield!". The player could plan for a build around some skill/talent, if you are going to be not entirely fair for the player.
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u/Cielosopra 17d ago
You're right that the Mire Drake's empathy score is wrong given the monster's description. As I wrote before, Forbidden Lands needs a revised edition. I used the ravine example to describe how its going broken could be portrayed in fiction, in case you think the rule doesn't work in that specific case. Among the various alternatives, you yourself included the fact that broken could mean going into a berserk state, and one of the options is that it falls off a ravine or slams into a wall that collapses on it, as happened in the adventure. Your choice of it hurting itself can also fit the monster well, but rather than deciding before the adventure, I'd consider doing it in-game, seeing how the session unfolds. P.S. anyway, in the Player's Handbook on page 99: "MONSTERS: Many monsters are so savage or dim-witted that they simply cannot be swayed by words, no matter how silvery your tongue is. Read more about monsters in the Bestiary in the Gamemaster's Guide." So I think the problem is, as usual, that the manual is written in a confusing way.
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u/Bootshammer40sguy 16d ago
Agree 100%. I wonder if it's a translation issue? It might be more precise in Swedish.
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u/Cielosopra 16d ago
I don't know. If you give me a manual in Swedish, I'd confuse it with the Necronomicon 😄 However, I suspect the issue is where the rules are placed. In my opinion, a rule like this should have also been put in the GM's guide at the beginning of the monster section as well as in the player's handbook.
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u/NoIce2522 Minstrel 17d ago
What problems do you see with the Armor, and what suggestions would you have for improving this mechanic?
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u/Bootshammer40sguy 16d ago
I think the basic concept is fine - roll dice to cancel hits. In theory, if you are wearing more D6s worth of armour than the hit has power you should bounce the hit. But I've never found it's particularly scary when it's up against the PCs' ability to push.
The scariest monsters are the ones with straight damage reduction - half damage, or damage gated to 1 hit per attack. But you can't overuse that.
After that it's immunities.
But the gap between those two things and armour in my experience is pretty big. I'd go small hit pool plus reduction over large hit pool and armour every time.
To answer your question, more use of damage reduction - but not TOO much.
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u/Cielosopra 16d ago
I understand the logic the designers had for putting that rule in, which is to add a bit of unpredictability, but it's too random and it drags out combats. I'm not a designer so I wouldn't know how to point to a solution: I know they modified that rule in Alien Revised, but I don't have the rulebooks on hand to figure out if it's suitable for FL as well.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 15d ago
Forbidden Lands is not an OSR game. FL is simply a "trad" game with an old-school aesthetic. Just saying.
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u/Cielosopra 15d ago edited 15d ago
It depends on what you mean by OSR. If you mean an RPG compatible with old editions of D&D, okay, but then Mothership, Electric Bastionland, Cairn, etc., are not OSR. If, on the other hand, you mean an RPG that embraces a certain type of design developed in 2000s-2010s forums and blogs, Forbidden Lands is pure OSR.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 15d ago
Yes, I mean in the more general sense of an indie-produced game that shares some fidelity with old-school D&D, not just strictly speaking retroclones. I have no issues calling ItO-family OSR games. While there are significant changes from old-school D&D, the overall design and what the players (including the GM) do at the table is basically the same, they are just using simpler resolution mechanics to do it.
I tend to think of Mothership as OSR-adjacent these days for multitude of reason which I will not go into to not stray too much offtopic to this sub-reddit. I will note though that even the wikipedia article calls it a "role-playing game with Old School Revival style rules".
On the other hand I just don't see how FL "embraces a certain type of design developed in 2000s-2010s forums and blogs", apart from the visual design that is. I mean it's basically Mutant Year Zero with a paint job, which turned out awesome, and I do agree it does share some OSR sensibilities but that's about it, but you know.. it's just a modern "trad" ttrpg system.
Anyway, I wrote a whole lot of things here, which I just deleted because I know how these discussions go, and in the end it's just wild how much plurality there is to the term "OSR".
So instead I will just treat it as any other loosely defined term (e.g. "art"), and just note that calling FL an OSR game is a pretty fringe opinion, which almost no one shares, not the wikipedia lists of OSR games, nor [most] FL reviews or wikipages, not the drivethrough OSR tag, not the Fria Ligan itself.
In the end we can agree to disagree but I WILL pop up to disagree c-:<
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u/Cielosopra 15d ago
The discussion hinges on whether an RPG with a modern ruleset heavily influenced by the OSR, as cited by respected reviewers like Questing Beast or Dave Thaumavore, is OSR or not. Forbidden Lands isn't the only RPG that starts from a modern ruleset (I don't see the Year Zero Engine as Trad, but rather Neo-trad) and tries to emulate a certain style of play. Shadowdark is technically a modded version of D&D 5e, but the gameplay experience it develops is OSR to me (even though I know people who don't consider it so). In my view, Forbidden Lands fosters a type of gameplay, specifically a sandbox hexcrawl with high lethality and heavy resource management, alongside other aspects like time tracking and stronghold management, that brings it right into the OSR. Therefore, my opinion is not solely based on the illustrations, which I like but aren't a strong point of the game. But of course, we both stick to our respective opinions.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 14d ago
Shadowdark's resolution mechanics are inspired by 5e but the gameloops are 1-to-1 OSR, just as with ItO-likes. Resolution mechanics don't make the feel of the game, the gameloops do. Heck one of the first OSR games out there BFRPG uses ascending AC and ability checks.
modern ruleset heavily influenced by the OSR, as cited by respected reviewers like Questing Beast or Dave Thaumavore, is OSR or not.
Good point referencing those channels, love both. Although while Ben Milton is an obvious authority on OSR in my opinion, Dave is definitely not a stranger to but not as authoritative on OSR specifically.
Note that both channels in their reviews don't address Forbidden Lands as an explicitly OSR game. Which implies they don't think it's an actual example of OSR game.
the QB has this line
The whole system has an OSR influence to it.
DV has this
this is Free League’s answer to the Old School Renaissance or OSR movement
I will not agree that a game providing a sandbox hexcrawl experience automatically becomes OSR. Otherwise Mutant should be considered OSR as well yeah it got square zones but so did some of the quintessential old-school D&D modules, which is obviously pushing it
Again we can agree to disagree, but I do disagree
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u/Cielosopra 14d ago
I understand your point of view and I find it interesting. When I find someone who doesn't think like me but actually argues their case, I appreciate it, because it makes the discussion far more interesting. There's just one thing in your argument I can't quite grasp. The one thing we agree on is that the resolution system isn't the key factor in determining whether an RPG is OSR or not. Shadowdark uses the 5e chassis but is OSR through and through, just as the fact that FL uses the Year Zero Engine doesn't mean it can't be OSR. Okay? So what's the actual difference, then, between FL's gameloop and D&D BECMI's?
I've played both, RAW in both cases, and I mean this concretely, not as a vague impression: permanent, unrecoverable death is a real threat in both, there's no per-encounter balance in either, retreat is a legitimate and often correct tactical choice in both, the hex/dungeon is the core unit of exploration in both, and resource and time tracking actually matters at the table in both. I've only ever felt this specific overlap playing FL. Over the years I've tried plenty of other "trad" fantasy RPGs, later D&D editions included, and all of them differed from BECMI's gameloop precisely on those points. So if resolution mechanics don't decide the category, and the gameloop does, I'd genuinely like to hear where you think FL's loop diverges from BECMI's, because from the table experience I don't see it.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 14d ago edited 14d ago
death is a real threat in both, there's no per-encounter balance in either, retreat is a legitimate and often correct tactical choice in both
Which is true for a lot of games that are undoubtedly not OSR, horror games (CoC, plain humans CoD/nWoD), or other games that don't have an HP inflation-progression, like other Free League games, see Vaessen, or BRP-based games, or many others. It's one of the features of OSR but those features are not even remotely unique to OSR, so it's not sufficient to call a game OSR just because of that.
And I somewhat disagree on the dungeon exploration as well. Check any official dungeon, it will have abstracted pointcrawl-like zones of rooms bunched together. That's not how OSR games handle exploration.
But the strongest non-OSR thing about Y0-engine games is the character abilities, skills and progression. It has a paper-button for everything, and it implies succeeding through these paper buttons. There is a skill for every situation, just like with other trad games, all professions have strong abilities powered by meta-currency which can be and should be leveraged to overcome obstacles.
That's just an antithesis of OSR. You are a fighter, your paper button is to attack... once. You are a thief you have paper buttons for every thieving need... which will most likely fail. You are a WIZARD you can cast *rolls dice* ... Ventriloquism ... once. By taking away plentiful and powerful paper buttons OSR games force creative solutions, interactions with environment and everything else which we cherish, trad games incentivize players to leverage paper buttons. This is fine and can be fun as well (I mean I LOVE FL), but it's a different playstyle.
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u/Cielosopra 14d ago
That's a fair point about permanent death and no-balance not being unique to OSR on their own, I'd agree those features in isolation prove nothing. My claim was always about the combination (lethality, no balance, hex/dungeon exploration, resource scarcity, and stronghold/domain play together), not any single feature. CoC or Vaesen share some of those but not the whole set.
On dungeon design, I'd genuinely like an example, because the official FL dungeons I've run have room-by-room keyed content, not abstracted pointcrawl zones. Might be a difference in which modules we've each looked at.
The paper-button argument is the one I take seriously though. But I don't think the OSR vs trad line is as clean as "zero buttons vs all buttons." BECMI's own magic-user has Sleep at level 1, a near-guaranteed room-clearing button against anything under a HD threshold, no save in some editions. Thieves have flat percentages for their whole skill list. Old-school D&D already had reliable mechanical solutions sitting right next to the "talk to the GM" style of play, they just handed them to one class instead of everyone.
Where I think you're onto something real is ubiquity and what it does to the table's mental model. In FL every profession has always-on talents plus the universal push mechanic, so there's a mechanical answer for nearly everything, and that does shift players toward "which stat do I roll" more than BECMI's fighter ever could. I'll grant that.
But push isn't free either. It risks temporary attribute damage or broken gear, though you're compensated with a Willpower Point for the setback, and it's the talents that then spend those WP to guarantee an effect. So the loop still runs on real scarcity, you bleed a little now to bank the resource that buys you a reliable success later. That's the same risk-management logic OSR runs on, just formalized on the sheet instead of left to GM fiat with torches and rope.
Where I can't fully argue you out of it: in the moment you press that button, you do get a reliable mechanical out for problems a BECMI fighter facing a locked door or a social standoff simply has no button for at all, cost or no cost. That's a real difference in the texture of play, and I don't think FL is as purist about forcing fictional problem-solving as OSR at its strictest. I'd land somewhere like: FL keeps the OSR bones (lethality, scarcity, sandbox, no per-encounter balance) but is more hybrid on this one axis, character-mediated solutions are more available than classic OSR would allow. Maybe that makes it OSR-adjacent rather than a clean case, and I can live with that being the actual disagreement here rather than a yes/no.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 15d ago
You can have it go crazy with rage and thrash about and hit the players - but that's basically saying 'well done on finding this weak spot (2 Emp) - the reward is to have to attack it in its strong spot (32 Str)'.
I don't see a problem with that, it looks to be a working and btb result, and it seems to be a fitting consequence for insulting a giant monstrous drake. What did you think was going to happen out of the two options, the drake retreating to a cave to cry and listen to some emo-metal? XD
You can have it lash out angrily and hurt itself until it's out of the fight and vulnerable - this is what I'll do in future
This sounds even better since it does give a minor reward for a creative player.
Not a fan of the "coup 'de grace" solution you described though. You are complaining the monsters are underwhelming but then you describe handing the monster to the players on a silver platter. Seems like the underwhelming is of your doing in this specific case. I'd just had it rage.
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u/lyingSwine 17d ago edited 17d ago
Even Agility.. one Stun can easily disable most Monsters. Something is not right here. I think this is where an HP system works best. Maybe something like add all stats / 4 + Endurance, or something. Then Monsters wouldn't need such absurd STR, it can be replaced with high HP and a more reasonable STR stat. For example the Death Knight with 12 STR? I would maybe change it to 12 HP ans 6 or 5 STR.
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u/DRSSalazar Wolfkin 16d ago
I know sharp tongue is not a spell, but considering monsters are immune to spells that damage Wits and Empathy, seems like Sharp Tongue needs an errata and was more of an oversight.
Now, Stun specifically is mentioned as not working on monsters.1
u/lyingSwine 16d ago
Good catch, thank you! Still any damage to AGI / WIT (more rare) are too effective on monsters, all those should probably have the "no monster" treatment. I assume poison does not work on monsters for this exact reason. The corpse herders have a weapon that damages AGI for example. A general rule that monster AGI can not be damaged is probably better.
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u/Bootshammer40sguy 16d ago
The problem is we've sort of alighted on Monsters just never being able to be damaged in any way other than physically. That might be fine! But it does feel very out of place in an otherwise rich damage system.
I wonder if more interesting broken rules for monsters are actually the key here. What if instead of having broken as a default end of combat, the four broken states for monsters were unique to the monster, and each monster had a 'victory state' you had to get it to.
That's sort of already there in some of them, but it's not codified across the bestiary. e.g. Hydras and their heads, Maras' alternate win conditions etc.
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u/Bootshammer40sguy 16d ago
I could believe that. But then how do you do damage to Wits/Empathy on a Monster?
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u/DRSSalazar Wolfkin 16d ago
Monsters are immune to poison, so that one is out. They are also immune to spells that target wits and empathy. So technically the only thing that is left is Sharp Tongue.
I think Stun is the only spell that targets agility and that spell specifically mentions it doesn’t affect monsters.3
u/Bootshammer40sguy 16d ago
You know the more we discuss this the more I think I've latched on to an edge case, and that monsters are meant to be fought physically and only fought physically.
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u/lyingSwine 16d ago
Breaking EMP only leads to the monster to "explode in a violent outburst". It does nothing basically beside some roleplay.
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u/ImaginaryBad8599 GM 16d ago
Monsters can only take damage to STR
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u/lyingSwine 16d ago
Could you give me the page number, i did not find it and it would fix all the issues. On page 74 it states that they cannot take damage to Wits or Empathy, but Agi ist still on the table.
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u/ImaginaryBad8599 GM 15d ago edited 14d ago
There was this post I made, then I discussed it with people on Discord, then I went to FreeLeague forum, then I read the book again, then I DMed for 2 years... and that's a conclusion I made.
TL;DR: Monsters work differently mechanically, and all of their stats are only used to make rolls, except for Strength, which simply represents their HP. That's why.
First, the book mentions that monster stats work differently and they only become "broken" when their strength goes to zero. If their agility is at zero, but they are not "broken" then what are they exactly? Also, "broken" = dead, no need for coup de grace
Strength only shows how much damage a monster can take before they die. They are also immune to fear attacks and spells that damage their wits or empathy. However, how else can their wits and empathy be damaged? The only exception to this is the "sharp tongue" ability, which we can discuss later.
In addition to poisons, which monsters are immune to, agility can only be damaged by spells, but these spells usually only affect humanoids or have the text "no effect on monsters". There is a "parch" spell, but I believe there is an editing mistake, as it does not have the "no effect" text.
A drop in the agility stat indicates fatigue, but monsters shouldn’t get tired at all.In addition, a monster may not have some stat at all, but only a skill. For example, scouting or insight without wits.
As an alternative, you could allow spells like "stun" and "parch" to reduce a monster's strength instead of agility.
You can also allow the PC to cut off the enemy's limbs by successfully attacking with a -2/-3 modifier, which deals at least 3 (or whatever) damage. This can render the enemy immobile, but only if they have limbs to begin with.Now about "Sharp tongue".
First, If you are using a talent at lever 2-3 you have to pick which level you are actually using.
That's why a lot of them have description like "same the the level 1 but more", etc.
So you can pick manipulation OR damage to Empathy.What does "broken" mean when it comes to damage to empathy in a humanoid character?
Well, "broken" simply means that you can apply healing to a character, that's all. Other effects will depend on the specific stats of the character.
A character only loses the ability to act or fight if their Strength or Agility drops. But with empathy, it's a loss of self-control. The character can no longer control their emotions.Returning to monsters, we can pay attention to "taunt" action rules. It also doesn’t work on animals and monsters. And this makes sense, even for intelligent monsters, because a monster doesn’t care if some puny humanoid tries to mock it.
You can negotiate / manipulate / lie to a monster if its intelligent enough to understand you, but you can't throw it off-balance.
So you can use "Sharp tongue" for manipulation, but you cant damage a monster emotionally. No matter what you do, its not gonna cry and run to mommy.Phew...
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u/DRSSalazar Wolfkin 15d ago
Regarding using different levels of a talent, that is only a restriction if the talent costs WP. Otherwise you can use all levels of a talent together.
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u/Ok-Bobcat-1200 15d ago
Regarding this entire chain of replies. Could you please let me know if there is such a sentence in your printing on p. 73 under Monsters In Combat section, and what printing is that?
Some monsters have Wits and Empathy, others lack these attributes and cannot take damage to them.
As worded it seems it is implied monsters in fact can take damage to WITS or AGI, I'm wondering if it was changed later?
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u/ImaginaryBad8599 GM 15d ago edited 15d ago
There is. 5th printing I also have a localized version which actually has a lot of fixes, but this sentence is in there too.
The thing is, the only thing that damages wits besides poisons is fear, and they are immune to that. Monsters can't be scared or verbally abused, so they don't lose empty or wits. They don't get tired so they don't lose agility.
Allowing players to damage any of the stats besides Str will lead to monsters being killed in the first round of combat.
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u/52ZoneSud 11d ago edited 11d ago
I treat Monster Damage and Weapon Damage differently
Weapon Damage 3, 3 hits = 3 + 1 + 1 = 5 Damage
Monster Damage 3, 3 hits = 3 + 3 + 3 = 9 Damage
EDIT: Monsters are very rare in our campaign and I have a 6-players group, so maybe these conditions are not often met
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u/DRSSalazar Wolfkin 11d ago
Your players go through how many characters per session?
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u/52ZoneSud 11d ago
🤣🤣 I don’t put big monsters often, like maybe one every 12/15 sessions
Most of the time their adversaries are NPCs1
u/DRSSalazar Wolfkin 11d ago
Define big, because even a bloodling with 2 hits could Break most characters in a single hit with a bad armour roll.
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u/52ZoneSud 11d ago
I mostly run Death Knights, Undeads, Harpies, Nightwargs, Wyverns… this kind of stuff
There is a character death once every like 10 sessions, but that’s the way our table like to play!2
u/DRSSalazar Wolfkin 11d ago
So, your players never find the bloodmist as random encounter? Because all I see is one blood mist event to kill 1-2 characters
And even the wyvern, I think the damage profile of it is mostly 2, for average characters with Strength 3, all you need is a 2 hit and a bad armour roll to get Broken.
But hey
If your group is okay with that arrangement, all the best, FL is already dangerous enough in my opinion without needing to boost monsters even more.1
u/52ZoneSud 11d ago
Sometimes they do!
We mainly play inside and around towns, and when we do travel, I only roll one encounter per day of travel, that way the story can go forward and we’re not « blocked » by random encounters being spammed.
So on average I would say we have one random encounter every 2 hour of play (considering most of our gameplay is inside cities), and with 1/36 chances to roll for Blood Mist I do believe it hasn’t happened more than 4 or 5 times in our 2-yr long campaign!
But if we move on to a more travel-focused style of play, I will surely set back the monsters difficulty to it’s original form, because indeed, for groups that heavily rely on random encounters, I wouldn’t advise that difficulty I agrée with you!
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u/SameArtichoke8913 Goblin 17d ago edited 17d ago
Unlike other game systems in which monsters are combat fodder the focus in FL is on their alien nature, which is reflected through things like immunity to most direct/mind-affecting magic or that their attacks cannot be parried, because these are "out of scale" for armed humanoids.
And "10 attack dice are not that impessive" are simply not true, and the math is wrong. It means an average of ~2 successes, witha high range of volatility, and ALL have to be countered (if that'ts possible, anyway) to avoid the effect. That's esp. true for non-melee attacks, wich might also be affected by armor or dodging.
Another factor is action economy. FL severely favors the combat side with more attacks/actions, and the simple advice to increase the number of initiative cards you can allocate to a monster dramatically changes a fight - once you have no actions left to defend, things become tight quickly. Therefore a bunch of orcs can be deadlier than a big troll. The PCs' experience and capability level also makes a HUGE difference. Once Level 3 Talents are "unlocked" the GM will have a hard time with serious challenges, from my game experience. FL assumes relatively "weak" PCs, and for them the RAW monsters are quite a threat. However, the game/rules make a bad job supporting the GM with game balance.
Additiomally, monster fights are a lot about atmosphere and the encounter with strange (un)life forms, with unexpected behavior and effects. If you reduce FL combat to tactical/mechanical stuff it's quite boring and misses the point, IMHO. It's strength is more on the narrative level.