New Monster: Flesh Beetle

The idea is loosely based on the move THE MUMMY and the scenes based around the scarabs.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJP8XTzpOCw

My hope is to make this a very creepy situation...bugs crawling over ones body is very nasty. Rather than an attack that kills quickly I would rather have a GET THEM OFF ME! reaction from the player.


Please critique, comment, etc.



Danger: Flesh Beetles - Hoard, Mindless, Ravenous
Weapons: Bite (1pt)
Hp - 5, AC - 0
Special Quality: Swarm, Ignores armor.
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These beetles are about the size of a saucer. They move and attack in clusters of 5 (or whatever number you choose). Any successful attack, which isn’t an area effect, will only kill 1 beetle and reduce the overall HP by only 1. Thus for a swarm of 5 it would take five successful attacks to kill the whole mass. The beetles will swarm over a person’s body finding openings in armor to attack the flesh. Once they swarm a person, that person will take 1HP of damage regardless of armor, until they are all killed. Any partial success for a Hack and Slash will not only kill the individual beetle, but will also expose the player to the attack.
Instinct: To devour human flesh

• Instill terror

I like it. My table couldn't use it, because we allow people to cleave through if there's enough damage to carry over to the next guy, but I love the inspiration and the feel of it.

Not a fan.  It feels too mechanical, not enough flavor.

I'd stat up a swarm of these things as a single monster, maybe one of a group.  Handle the fact that it's a swarm of individuals as a special quality rather than a custom move.  Give them more interesting moves themselves.

Something like...

Swarm of Flesh Beetles (solitary, small, gibbous?)
 9 hp, 0 armor
 Swarming & biting (d8 damage, ignores armor, hand)
 Special qualities: enormous swarm of individual bugs

• Burst forth from the earth
• Swarm over someone
• Incapacitate someone with pain and horror

Instinct:  to devour flesh

With that special quality, when someone tries to Hack & Slash or Volley against them, you get to say "It's a mass of bugs; a spear thrust isn't going to be very useful.  So how do you do that?"


 

In actual play, I usually handle swarms as environmental or situational hazards, not monsters.  You can't hack and slash a cloud of bugs, right?  So what do you do?  Use your torch to try and drive them off?  Run screaming?  Jump into the water and hold your breath?  etc etc. 

Existing moves could cover all that, or you could write a special custom move like;

When you're swarmed by the Flesh Beetles roll + CON; on a 10+ you get to safety, for the time being.  On a 7-9, you can get away, but choose one;

- you leave something behind
- you take d8 damage (ignore armor)
- something you're wearing gets damaged

On a miss, they're everywhere with stinging and biting, plus whatever the GM says.

In actual play, I usually handle swarms as environmental or situational hazards, not monsters.  You can't hack and slash a cloud of bugs, right? 

A cloud of misquitoes?  No.  But that horde of scarabs that pops out of the ground in the Mummy?  I bet the fighter's huge hammer could squash a bunch of them, making hack & slash a viable move.  At which point, having HP and whatnot for the things makes a lot of sense.

Wait, wait, wait. We already have that covered. Beta 2.3, page 223 (112 on spread version), Rot Grub. I used them some sessions ago; I learned that you may want to have at least 6 of them swarming around, because the are cool but weak. However, they do produce the "get them off me" situation.

However, it would be funny to have a Swarm tag for monsters, in the same category of Solitary, Group and Horde, maybe with simple but special rules.

....hmmmm......I think i will be doing a mishmash.

A cloud of misquitoes?  No.  But that horde of scarabs that pops out of the ground in the Mummy?  I bet the fighter's huge hammer could squash a bunch of them, making hack & slash a viable move.  At which point, having HP and whatnot for the things makes a lot of sense.

Well, yes, you're literally killing bugs, but I think the point (which is totally exemplified in the aforementioned scene) is that your pitiful efforts are having no meaningful effect on the swarm.

By loosely, I did mean LOOSELY. I do not plan for this to be an unstoppable monster as was in the movie, but rather one that can be physically defeated.

Quote from: Jeremy on June 28, 2012, 06:30:32 PM

A cloud of misquitoes?  No.  But that horde of scarabs that pops out of the ground in the Mummy?  I bet the fighter's huge hammer could squash a bunch of them, making hack & slash a viable move.  At which point, having HP and whatnot for the things makes a lot of sense.

Well, yes, you're literally killing bugs, but I think the point (which is totally exemplified in the aforementioned scene) is that your pitiful efforts are having no meaningful effect on the swarm.