Questions about Ghouls

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Longman
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Questions about Ghouls

Post by Longman »

@Solo and others,

The rules say that a successful turn roll will turn 2d6 HD worth of undead creatures.

Do you think this means the actual listed HD of the monster for hit point purposes (ghouls have 2), or, the effective HD of the monster for turning purposes (ghouls have 3)?

I'm finding BFRPG ghouls to be quite tough! With 3 attacks per round, the chances of numerous party members getting paralysed is extremely high.

Do you think ghouls who had paralysed a victim would be smart enough to take down others before beginning their feast? Or do you think they would begin devouring the victim at once, or perhaps dragging them away?
Last edited by Longman on Fri May 20, 2016 11:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Dimirag
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Dimirag »

Longman wrote:The rules say that a successful turn roll will turn 2d6 worth of undead creatures.

Do you think this means the actual listed HD of the monster for hit point purposes (ghouls have 2), or, the effective HD of the monster for turning purposes (ghouls have 3)?
Ghouls are treated for they actual HD for things outside the turning chance, the HD difference in the table is a product of placing HD in it and does not reflect the values of the original table.
Longman wrote:Do you think ghouls who had paralysed a victim would be smart enough to take down others before beginning their feast? Or do you think they would begin devouring the victim at once, or perhaps dragging them away?
Ghouls only eat the flesh of dead humanoids, so, they won't start feeding until the paralized victim is dead. The question would rather be if the Ghoul would spend time killing the paralized victim or paralizing others, I think that if the other party members are far enough the ghoul would try to finish off its victim.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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Longman
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Longman »

The question would rather be if the Ghoul would spend time killing the paralized victim or paralizing others.

Which was actually the basic question I asked. :lol: Are they smart enough to take down others first, or do they concentrate on their paralysed victims? Whether or not they are eating, killing or dragging them off isn't really that relevant.

I think that if the other party members are far enough the ghoul would try to finish off its victim.

Me too, but how far away is far enough?

Ghouls are treated for they actual HD for things outside the turning chance.

I tend to agree. But does it say that in the rules somewhere, or is that your own interpretation? (A person could easily argue for the opposite interpretation.)
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Dimirag
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Dimirag »

Do you think ghouls who had paralysed a victim would be smart enough to take down others before beginning their feast?
I took the "feast" in a literal way...
Whether or not they are eating, killing or dragging them off isn't really that relevant
It could be depending on how "weak" the victim is, if its really wounded and in bad shape perhaps it will concentrate on it, if there others that seem weaker perhaps it prefer to go against them...

How far? I think if they aren't in attack range they can be ignored.

About the table, not really my interpretation, the original table and the BF one before 3rd edition did not use the monster's HD, it was added later with no monster conversion and because of having two 2HD monsters the HD/Monster Name rows don't align, the rules where made without that in mind, you just used the monster name for the turning chance and later its HD for the number turned.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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Clever_Munkey
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Clever_Munkey »

The rules say "The Hit Dice row is provided for use with undead monsters not found in the Core Rules; only use the Hit Dice row if the specific type of undead monster is not on the table, and no guidance is given in the monster's description."

So for ghouls you use the third column even though the hit dice don't match up.
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Longman
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Longman »

Dimirag wrote:I took the "feast" in a literal way...
So I see.

I take your point that they only eat dead folks, and rotten ones at that. Really what I meant was, ripping and biting into them in order to kill them.

For what it's worth, I am not using any coup de grace rules for paralysed victims, according to my reading of the Core Rules. So that means a ghoul has to physically rend and bite the paralysed victim until they run out of hit points.

For those with no armor, I am calling the ghouls' hits automatic (3d4 per round until the victim is dead). For those with armor, I'm saying the ghouls would have to deal with that, so I'm giving the ghouls a +4 to hit against the victim's normal AC, but without dex bonus factored in.

The average human will get ripped and bitten to death in a round, two at most. A paralysed PC with more hit points might last quite a few rounds of being attacked by the ghouls, before they finally died.

How do you deal with attacks on victims that are paralysed?
Clever_Munkey wrote:The rules say "The Hit Dice row is provided for use with undead monsters not found in the Core Rules; only use the Hit Dice row if the specific type of undead monster is not on the table, and no guidance is given in the monster's description."

So for ghouls you use the third column even though the hit dice don't match up.
I get that now after what you and Dimi have posted. Ghouls are 3HD to turn, but count as 2HD when working out how many are turned. Cheers.
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Dimirag
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Dimirag »

How do you deal with attacks on victims that are paralysed?
I rule it an auto-hit, but I use the Saving vs Death option with a bonus if the character has any helping armor on the first attack, subsequent attacks reduce by 1d6 the time* before death.
Sorry for any misspelling or writing error, I am not a native English speaker
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Solomoriah »

Longman wrote:I get that now after what you and Dimi have posted. Ghouls are 3HD to turn, but count as 2HD when working out how many are turned. Cheers.
Not quite the right interpretation... you're holding the sword by the wrong end. Ghouls are ghouls for turning purposes... hit dice simply do not enter into it. If it weren't for the non-Core undead, the hit dice info would not be on the table at all... it's a compromise of sorts.
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Longman
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by Longman »

Fine. The issue really was, how many of the horrid things will the cleric be able to turn this round, if she succeeds her roll on the initial table? But I have worked out the answer to that question so it's all OK.
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Re: Question about Ghouls

Post by mTeasdale »

Talking about ghouls, I had to rule on this last night, and I was curious about how you would rule this :

Does a monk attacking a ghoul unarmed should saves vs paralysis ?
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