Large Creatures Versus Head Shots

[Tywyll]

Does anyone have trouble with large, low DCV creatures constantly sucking up head shots from archers and spell casters until the stun overwhelms them?

I had a dragon attack my party last night. At first it was truely terrifying and they ran around screaming mostly. Then, an arrow sticks into its head (pumped with some MA and CLs) and while it only did 3 Body, it did a rediculous amount of stun. After defenses and reduction, down it went. Then they were coup de graceing it and pulling teeth before you can say WTF?

Seemed mighty anticlimactic.

I've been thinking of giving large creatures extra armor for the head area, and possibly larger PDs then the Beastiary's suggest.

any other thoughts?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Does anyone have trouble with large, low DCV creatures constantly sucking up head shots from archers and spell casters until the stun overwhelms them?

I had a dragon attack my party last night. At first it was truely terrifying and they ran around screaming mostly. Then, an arrow sticks into its head (pumped with some MA and CLs) and while it only did 3 Body, it did a rediculous amount of stun. After defenses and reduction, down it went. Then they were coup de graceing it and pulling teeth before you can say WTF?

Seemed mighty anticlimactic.

I've been thinking of giving large creatures extra armor for the head area, and possibly larger PDs then the Beastiary's suggest.

any other thoughts?

Yep.
All the time. My main solution has been, as you suggested, to upgrade the defences. I toughen up my big critters by quite a bit, and have a couple of things I consistently do to that end.
Right off the bat... Big things are frankly harder to hurt, realistically. Heavy, possibly aremored skin, backed with a dermal muscle layer, underlying fat layer & connective tissue before you even get seriuusly into functional muscles, serious vessels and vital organs. The minimal natural armor just doesn't do it for me most of the time. My solution has been to almost universally apply Damage Reduction. In my mind, DamRed is a common option with the Size templates. Its not hard to come up with a tier system if you want to codify base levels, but I've found it's not needed. The only thing I do 90% of the time is slap on a variation of the -1/4 "Real Armor" limit ("Real Natural Armor", the main limit being that the DamRed scales to the attacks at GM's discretion. A 3d6 RKA (Achieved through CSL's & martial arts) arrow, for instance, probably gets the DR... the basic scale of the arrow is for approximately human sized up to game animal sized targets. A 3d6 RKA Balista, however, might not take the full reduction. Thered probably be a way of creating some mechanics by comparing Mass multiples versus base DC's, but thus far I haven't bothered.

Another idea I've considered in some campaign settings to build in some "everyman" armor using both the sectional DEF and Activation rolls to represent locations that are defended by bone mass. Say 2 PD armor on a 14- for the head locations, 1 PD on an 11- for the shoulders, chest, and vitals for a human scale target, and add +1 Def per doubling of mass. This allows for the "I shot it in the head, but the bullet deflected off the skull" effect.

Grrr... there was a good thread discussing this back a year and a half ago, IIRC. It was before Fox1 left, IIRC, and discussed among other things making Dinosaurs a credible threat.

[ghost-angel]

Damage Reduction perhaps? 75% usually takes the sting out of just about any attack.

[Sir Ofeelya]

About ten years ago I was hunting and shot a deer with my trusty .303. Head shot and dropped the deer where it stood. Clambered down the ridge to get it and when we got to it the deer got up, shook it's head and ran away. One of the other guys took it down. First shot had glanced off it's head (in game terms perhaps 3 BOD, but stacks of stun). Now I know a deer isn't as tough as a dragon but I guess it happens sometimes.

[Curufea]

I'm thinking that getting rid of the hit location multiples for large creatures versus small weapons may be a good idea.
You could just use the table for large creatures versus large weapons only (ie a Dragon versus a Giant)

[Killer Shrike]

You can either control the STUN multiple, or give your serious threat monsters Damage Reduction, extra defense, high CON, extra STUN, or whatever combination will work best for your campaign.

[Edsel]

The simplest solution might be to rule that certain large creatures, such as dragons, are physiologically different and suffer less of a stun multiple to areas such as the head. For instance the dragon might only take a x4 or x3 Stun Multiple from head hits.

[Lord Liaden]

The Stun Lottery at work again. This is one of the features of how Stun Multipliers and Hit Locations can interact, which can be a benefit or a drawback depending on whether or not you want your PCs to be able to occasionally make incredibly good (or incredibly bad) shots as a matter of luck.

Controlling Stun damage as Killer Shrike suggests is one alternative. I should also point out that arrows in HERO are built with the Real Weapon Limitation, and part of that Lim is that the weapon may not damage objects that it could not reasonably affect in the real world, regardless of what the dice roll says. So as GM you're well within your rights to say that for head shots to a dragon, past a certain point the dragon simply won't take more Stun from a measly arrow.

[Hugh Neilson]

From a balance perspective, if the creature gets freebies for being large, it should have reduced or eliminated Disadvantages related to its size. The biggest in combat drawback to size is the lack of DCV, and the ease of such called shots. I'd rather buy the creature an ability that covers this enhanced defense. Plus, I'd rather know the real cost of the creature in case someone wants a spell to summon one, transform into one, etc.

What about buying the beast extra defenses that are limited to only reduce STUN to, say, double or triple the base BOD damage, essentially "buying off" the higher stun multiples.

Of course, your PC's may then also want to buy some "harder to stun" abilities, but if it's fair for NPC's, it should also be fair for PC's.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, if we're talking about buying extra Powers to compensate, how about allowing your dragons the Automaton Power, "No Hit Locations" (10 Character Points)? The dragon's armor is just too thick and tough overall for any particular area of its body to be more vulnerable.

If you do want the dragon to have a weak spot - perhaps much harder to attack, such as the traditional underbelly - you could give the dragon a Vulnerability Disadvantage from attacks to that area.

[CrosshairCollie]

I generally agree with the 'boost defenses' concept. It's not really a 'Stun Lottery' thing, since it's not like your PCs are randomly throwing killing attacks in hopes of a high StunX ... they know they can get the StunX due to hit locations. Since you can be reasonably assured your PCs can get 5s on their StunXs, account for that when designing the opposition.

[Eosin]

I guess the best answer depends on your conception of dragons.

Middle-Earth Dragons, for instance, might have 15 rPD with 75% Damage Reduction (not versus weapons forged to kill dragons, not versus giant sized weapons like a ballista, and not in area 3 (in this case area 3 being the one weak point of its armor)).

Big fire-breathing lizards might just have 18 rPD with no DR.

Forgotten Realms Dragons might have Dragonmagic armor, rings of defense, and an ugly high DCV with no hit locations (or takes no STUN). Each depending on its age.

[Lord Liaden]

I can suggest one other tack. I devised a House Rule to encourage players to vary their attack choices in combat, so that they didn't always rely on the same tactic. It's essentially a reverse of the rule for Surprise Moves, which I call "Predictable Move." If a character uses the same mode of attack repeatedly, the target gets the benefit of being able to anticipate that attack and prepare for it, translating to a DCV bonus of +1 to +3 or even higher versus that attack. The bonus remains in effect until the attacker chooses a different type of attack, or comes up with a creative variant on his usual one. This bonus can also apply to OCV against an opponent who repeatedly chooses the same defensive Maneuver or Power, e.g. Dodge, Block, Missile Deflection etc.

So, if the PCs are always attempting head shots against your giant monster, and the monster is intelligent like most dragons are depicted, that monster will pick up on their tactic and make himself harder to hit that way.

[Bismark]

At times like this I have fond memories of the Rolemaster Large Creatures Critical and Super-Large Creatures Critical tables

I think the way to go with large beasties is Damage Reduction and/or a honking large amount of PD (plus, justify a way for the beastie's skin to be at least 1 pt of resistant defence - which should not be hard, to be honest). For a really tough cookie you could combine them - I did that with a lamia once and the party had to 'nickle and dime' it to death as they could not Stun it no matter what they tried (and these were 225pt epic Greek heroes - i.e., "combat monsters").

One of these days I will codify some rules I have been trying to work on regarding low-momentum weapons without massive kinetic energy (i.e. arrows, light slingshot, light javelins etc.) against people in armour (especially padded types, rigid types or both) - it is way too easy to Stun someone with arrows in HERO, even when they are wearing a plate helmet and it is not point-blank range. I was considering using a Reduced STUN multiplier mod or maybe a negative Piercing effect to simulate this.

A human-sized sword against a massive dragon would be like trying to stab a human with a hat pin - can be dangerous or even fatal, but STUN? Forget it!

[Lord Liaden]

One of the things I've done with weapons built with the Real Weapon Limitation, especially in supers campaigns, is to set a limit on what Stun damage can be done with them based on the weapon's Body damage potential vs. the target's Defense. Using this scenario as an example, I might rule that if the weapon with Real Weapon is not capable of doing Body damage to a target past its Defense using Standard Effect to calculate Body damage, then the Stun that it does is reduced however the GM thinks is appropriate, e.g. as if the weapon had Reduced Penetration, or minimum or even no Stun damage.

That should keep arrows and the like from being overly effective.